Before defining mediatic education, we can stop for a while and think that for a long time the only way to acquire information was through books and staying in libraries with our friends, doing research, and transcribing information to know about certain subjects that were not covered in the classroom.
This has changed a lot over the last few years and has brought wonders to communication, information, and ways to promote knowledge.
But, before thinking about the positive aspects, we must remember that the world of networks – where practically all people of different ages are inserted – brings a large flow of content that needs to be filtered, especially when we are talking about children’s access to this universe.
With that in mind, let’s understand what media education is and its importance for life and our children’s education.
What is mediatic education?
We can define mediatic education as the guidance given both at home and school for children and adolescents who are inserted into the digital world by consuming and producing content.
Media education involves the ability to critically analyze the content consumed and produced on the networks or in print; or even on television and radio, even if on a smaller scale, where the role of critical thinking plays a primary role as a necessary competence for the healthy use of social media.
Currently, in addition to consuming content, the vast majority of people produce some kind of material that generates interaction on social networks, from dances for entertainment to elaborate materials and videos on specific platforms that help in personal, educational, and professional training.
This can generate plenty of doubts for parents about the exposure in which their children are inserted and the need to know how to deal with all this volume of information and its reliability.
Awareness and responsibility for using digital tools and sharing networks should be considered an ally for the education and of children and adolescents’ learning process, generating numerous benefits for them.
What is the importance of media education for the formation of children?
The importance of mediatic education lies in the possibility of developing in children the ability to reflexively criticize the content they are consuming to understand if that content is beneficial and true.
We are talking about children and adolescents who are digital natives, ie, they were born under the influence of the internet and the various social media arising from this technology. However, it does not mean they do not need guidance to insert themselves into this habitual world for them.
Another benefit is to create an alert system for children and teenagers – and even for us adults and guardians – that we focus our research on to keep the direction of the content search.
Many times, we navigate some websites and are taken by so many links that drive us forward; we end up losing the meaning of our search in that tool, rambling on disconnected information due to a lack of focus and attention, which social media provide.
Thinking about it, because we have a mediatic culture, from the first years of life and access to screens and content, we must work in a reflective critical sense.
We can talk about several situations that corroborate an unbridled and uncritical use of social media.
Taking social networks as an example, it is common for people to absently browse through them and suddenly like, comment, and even share information that does not match their values and follow people on social networks that will not add content and quality to their lives.
Parents must be aware of what their children are consuming on the internet on the most varied platforms available to them.
Music, movies, short videos, and photos on networks, gaming sites, and everything else you can find, should awaken the ability to develop reflective, empathetic citizens with a sense of justice and humanity to compose society and everything more than it represents, in terms of the ability to help people and reflect values that add to their lives and those around them.
The ability to perceive the world around them and critically analyze the information environment generates citizens with a strengthened mindset.
What are the goals of mediatic education?
When we think about the goals of mediatic education, we can describe some situations that are present in our daily lives and that we often pass on to children through our example.
Mediatic education has clear objectives for students, such as:
1. Analyze: when we are talking about children and the ability to critically analyze information, it is necessary to keep in mind that this behavior must be habitual.
2. Understand: children must understand information search engines.
3. Access: not only the internet but access to various digital tools and multiple media resources facilitate children’s reflective capacity.
4. Apply: the application of information acquired by the media is one of the main objectives of mediatic education, especially about children and everything they are learning at this stage of life. Thus, they should be guided to apply the information acquired safely to their daily lives.
5. Create: in the face of this universe of media, children began to be part of the content creation process, which generates the development of diverse and positive skills for their human and cognitive formation.
This range of objectives is also set for adults, teachers, and others involved in the media education process, where exploring different pedagogical approaches is necessary to promote learning based on children’s curiosity on an ongoing basis.
Facilitating this process is one of the great goals of mediatic education for teachers and parents, as well as guiding and creating safe, responsible, and encouraging situations for the development of children by teaching about ethics and social contribution.
Mediatic resources in early childhood education: how does it work?
Media culture is present in the most varied activities of children’s daily lives, considering that it is not a school component, but a form of social experience, it must be used to develop criticality about different contents.
Thinking in this way, all teachers can use digital tools and, consequently, insert media education into the daily life of the classroom from the contents presented.
Teaching children how to identify the veracity and credibility of information should be something thought about since childhood education.
We can highlight some points for a better children’s insertion with mediatic resources.
Let’s see:
● Orientation
● Follow-up
● Reflection
● Domain
When we think about each of these points, we must keep in mind that children need guidance throughout their growth and development process, and media education is a real need in their lives, as the world is increasingly connected.
This guidance should be given at school, at home, and by all those who are part of their daily lives.
The comparative demonstration for children of a real image and a photographic montage can be a good start to awaken a critical look at the images and photos they find in mediatic resources, raising another important point: reflection.
Monitoring all children’s activities based on the use of social media is essential for a good insertion in this universe.
And last but not least, we have the issues related to the technological domain, which should be taught to them from the first contact with social media to make better use of digital and communication tools.
Within early childhood education, media resources can be inserted in several ways. Among them, we can mention:
● Gamification
As an important way of inserting mathematical, linguistic, artistic, geographical, and historical knowledge into children’s daily lives, gamification is an ally in early childhood education and can be used as a way to insert children into a mediatic culture. Thus, they can learn to use digital tools as a fun game that allows teachers and parents to be creative with them.
● Online reading practice
Access to reading is one of the great stimulants of creativity, imagination, and communication skills for children. Therefore, inserting the universe of reading also through the media culture can be enriching for the possibilities of resources and facilitation of access that arouse the curiosity of the little ones in this process.
The school is a space for development added to digital tools from the media culture that makes up the children’s learning process, placing the student as the protagonist of their learning in which the search for information is fundamental.
St. Nicholas is a school with an international teaching proposal that provides its students with security and enhances their learning process, combining digital tools with a complete environment for the little ones’ formation.
Offering security for children and parents from a team of professionals prepared for the educational challenges of modernity, in a humanized way and with a complete environment for the development of students.
Come to visit St. Nicholas School and bring your child to the best private children’s school in São Paulo.
Click on the link to apply now!
https://stnicholas.com.br/admissions/.
